Patty still stood there, when Margaret, who had hastily collected the few things she had brought with her, came down to join Colonel Piercey in the hall. He had been standing, as he had been on a previous occasion, carefully examining one of the old portraits. It was not a very interesting portrait, nor was he, I suppose, specially interested in it; but his figure, wrapt in silence and abstraction, made a curious contrast to that of Patty, thrilling with fire and movement. It was evident that she could not long restrain herself, and when Margaret appeared coming down the great stairs, the torrent burst forth.
“Oh, you are there, Meg Osborne: I wonder you didn’t go with your great friends, the first people in the county, as you all think, insulting me in my own house! Ah, and I’ll teach you all it’s my own house! I won’t have nobody here turning their backs to me, or going out and in of my place without as much as a thank you! You’re studying my pictures, Colonel Piercey, are you? They’re my pictures, they’re not yours; and I’ll have you to know that nobody sha’n’t even look at them without my consent.”
Colonel Piercey turned round, almost angry with himself for the fury he felt. “I beg your pardon,” he said, very gravely, yet with a sort of smile.
“Oh, you beg my pardon! and you laugh as if it were a joke! I can tell you it’s no joke. They’re all mine, willed by him as knew best who he wanted them to go to; and I’ll keep them, that I will, against all the beggarly kinsfolk in the world; coming here a-looking as soon as the old man’s in his grave for what they can devour!”
“Are you ready, Margaret?” Colonel Piercey said.
“Don’t you turn it off to her, sir: speak to me! It’s me that has to be considered first. You are going off mighty high: no civility to the head of the house, though I’ve taken you in and given you lodging in my house, at least Meg there, near a week? Oh, you laugh again, do you? And who is the head of the house if it’s not me? I’m Mrs. Piercey of Greyshott. The pictures are mine, and the name’s mine, as well as everything else; and you are nothing but the son of the younger brother, and not got as much to do with it as Pownceby there, the lawyer.”
“My dear Mrs. Piercey,” said Mr. Pownceby, “however much you may despise Pownceby the lawyer, he knows a little more on that subject than you do: a lady is rarely, if ever, the head of a house, and certainly never one who belongs to the family only by marriage. One word, if you please: Colonel Piercey’s father, now Sir Francis Piercey, is the undoubted head of the house.”